 So good evening everyone, it is a four o'clock middle sex time, five o'clock real time, we'll go with the real time and I will call our meeting to order this evening, good evening. We have on the zoom, it looks like John Udiss who else have we got over there? We have Deputy Chief Joseph Altsworth, iPad 6, whoever that is, Orca Media, and Sarah Lipkin from the Montpelier Senior. Okay, thank you. And here in the room with us in addition to the select board, we have the Brenda the town treasurer, we have Eric the road foreman and would you ladies and gentlemen, introduce yourself please. Hi, I'm Stephen Dennis. Yeah. Okay. Oh, third bling of course. Okay. Yeah. The first item on our agenda tonight and to those who are on the, on the zoom I will try and see you if you're ways your hand or indicate some sign that you're looking to speak but if I don't, if I don't, if I fail, just just speak up and I'll recognize you. Depending on how many people people we get the images on the screen that smaller and smaller. So the first item on our agenda tonight is approving the minutes of the March 14 special select board meeting action likely and reviewing and amending and approving the agenda for March 21 we'll get to that. So we need to approve the minutes of March 14 because they're motion Peter. I asked, because I inadvertently left you off at the last, like, five minutes of the select board meeting in my notes. Okay, to pass over that tonight. We do them and then pass over the minutes. Okay. Okay, so we will pass over minutes. We don't discuss anything that was in a minute. I would bring it up as new business. I had something you guys but I think that the minutes should reflect what happened in the last meeting and if you want to readdress it in this meeting. It would be a readdress. Okay, but I wouldn't be info later. It would be in today's minutes for today's minutes for today's but I wouldn't come up until down here. Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. So we will deal with that. And we do have amendments for tonight's agenda. We have energy code discussion right after the trench report at approximately 550. And then we also need to appoint one more member to the budget committee. And there's paper work to be signed from the planning commission for a grant. Okay. So that doesn't need to be something it can all come under other business. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yes. Just if I could have three minutes around green up. Sure. Would you like to do that right now, John and get it off your chest and you don't have to sit around for the rest of the press meeting. It's up to you. If that works for you. I'm ready. We try. Thank you. All right. Appreciate that. So in the past green, I'm the green up coordinator been doing this is my third year. The last couple of years. The green up spot has been at the, at the fire house near Romney. We've used the town dump truck, which requires the people, the conservation commission who stats it to climb up on a ladder and throw the trash in there. Most of the people in the conservation commission are not youngsters. By any stretch of the imagination. It's a accident waiting to happen. I approached Kate Abagini, who's the green up executive director of green up Diana form of middle sex resident. To see what some of the options might be cause sell up offers a sort of a green up deal. For a drop off dumpster, which would alleviate not having to use a dump truck and a ladder. The price for that is it's $110 for it to be delivered. $195 for them to pick it up. And then it's $125 per ton. So you're looking at a minimum of $305 plus whatever the tonnage is. We already paid that. So I guess I'm asking if the town would approve that. The other part of it would be that we collect tires. I'm green up day. I'm not exactly sure what we pay for that. I. In the past, the disposal fee. The seller told me that when we do it. Basic per tire or $12 per tire with a rim. If we were to get another roll off. Just for tires. Again, it'd be 300 bucks. For the delivery and pick up. And then it's $200 per ton. So the priority is clearly around the trash. And if you're willing to do the tires, that'd be great too. We're always very appreciative of. Of the road crew who, who ends up dealing, dealing with this. Questions. So John, isn't the way we've done it in the past is that people just stack up the tires. And then the road crew comes from the bucket loader and. The truck that pulls them away. It does. I would think that's. You don't need a dumpster. I mean, might be. Unless you disagree. I mean, it's going to be actually safer for people. Trying to hoist them up into the dumpster. So, yeah, I mean, I don't, you know, it's fine. I don't have any objection to that. I asked Sarah what we've been in the past for the tire disposals. And, you know, I guess she's not back yet. So I don't know what, what, what we've been paying. For that, but it's fine with it's absolutely fine. We collect a fair number of tires. But if the wheel of the select board is to go, we're just with the trash dumpster. That's, that's good too. And I will. Move forward once, once I get the official okay from, from you folks. Okay. So what, just to, just to reiterate the cost would be. $110 to deliver 195 to pick up. So that's $305 and the per ton cost would be the same either way. Yes, it's 125 per ton. Right. Right. Right. Right. We're paying that we're on the hook for that already. Yeah. That may be a reduced rate. Because they, they give, when you do it through green update, they give you a deal. I think, but again, I don't know exactly what we've paid in the past. The bills go directly to Sarah. I'm willing to say that they probably give the town the green upgrade on green update, but maybe they don't, I don't know. So maybe, maybe we're, maybe we're saving a little money doing it this way, but it's no more expensive. How about that? I would think that's correct. Okay. Do you know? No. We normally, somebody applies for a grant from the state. And we get a $500 grant every year to put towards cleaning up. And then anything that comes in over and above the $500. The town also budgets $500. I think. Or it has been 500. I think that's what they did with sure too. And. Okay. And that covers any overage. I think last time it came in like at $800 or something like that. So the 500, we had the 500 from the grant. Covered the first 500. And then we paid like 300. You know who did the grant. You know about that, John. I do not know about that. I know that. So. It's okay. Who did it. Because we don't know who it is either. Sarah probably knows because it's the same person. It was a woman, I think. Does that ring a bell? Wasn't mentioned. Was it the last time somebody did it. I don't know. John, just to. If not, Sarah will be back one. Yes. Next week. So it looks like the contribution. Okay. Well, it doesn't say. No, I think. It just says confirmation commission on those. The cut. Okay. But we've never, as far as I know. I'm on the conservation commission. As far as I know. In the three years. The conservation commission has. Has not been the person. But the entity that. That's applied for that grant. As far as I know. It probably was Mitch. Or maybe, or maybe Sarah. It was the chair. Whoever was chairing the green up committee or something was in charge of the green up. I thought, but. We've got the budget items under highly. In my own consultation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the question for tonight is. Will the select board agree? To. 305 dollars for a dumpster. Versus using our truck. The only other comment I would make is I agree. I served duty several years ago on that ladder going up and down and throwing stuff in the. In the truck. It's a sketchy proposition. We had a bunch of young kids there. It'd be one thing. So I do think it's a safety issue. I also think. You know, not that it's a big number, but it will save a little wear and tear on our truck because so it will come and. Pick it up and dispose of it. Yes. I would volunteer to save the town money. And I will run everything up and down the ladder. Oh. Well. She did it for me last year. I will. I will spend the entire day running it. I will spend the entire day running it. She did it for me last year. I will spend the entire day running stuff up and down the ladder. What, what say you to that, John? Hey, you know, if I don't know what. What this. Individ gentlemen's name is, I mean, that's, that's a very nice offer. It's, it's a lot of work. And, and it will. I mean, in the future, we've got to deal with this issue. But yeah, it's up to the select board. Ladies and gentlemen. What's your pleasure? Well, I think it's a great offer. I think my only concern is what happens if like he's sick or something. I haven't had a fever in 13 years. I agree. It's a great and generous offer. I think I can do it. Recording in progress. I think there's other good work that you could do. If you're interested in volunteering and bring up that. I just, I just think we need to have a safe plan. Approach the dealing with this problem. Whether it was you. Unlikely or me way more likely who fell off that ladder would be. It would be. I mean, if it's under a hundred pounds, I can probably just chalk it up and not even have to climb the ladder. Honestly. I appreciate your offer. I really do. Go with what John is saying, because it sounds like it's more or less going to be the same price. But, you know, I think that they're going to need help. They always have somebody there all day, right? And helping with stuff like that regardless, right? It's like. No, we, we, you know, conservation commission staff said we make sure that. You know, I mean, people bring things that we're not supposed to accept. And we, we, we deal with that. And, but, but I don't know. Gentlemen who offered. There are a lot of things that you could help us with if, if you were willing. Besides, besides that, it's, that would be much appreciated. I will commit to the entire day regardless of what your decision is. Thank you. That's often. What, what day is the event? Saturday, May. May. It's the first Saturday in May. And it is May. Let me look. It's May 6. And. We typically staff the drop off site. From nine, nine to three. So. A follow up question regarding the tires, you had mentioned a separate, a separate drop for tires. How do we deal with that? Normally it sounded like there was. You know, the bucket loader. They were loaded into that. And they were assumed so. Dropped into your dump truck. How are they recycled? They go Dutch. We bring them to the dump station and dump it in a separate, in a separate trip from the trash and all that. So the vision here is that if we move forward with the drop off, the roll off. That would be handled by Kasella. The town would load the tires into the dump truck and take that to the dump station. That would be handled by Kasella. Correct. Correct. Okay. Make sense. So is that a motion was. Yeah. We support John's request. Okay. Or is there a second to that motion? I'm sorry. Okay. Thank you. All those in favor of the motion to. Agree to spend $305 to supply a dumpster for trash on green up day. I have the. All 10th garage. Okay. Hold on. I think it could be more. There's going to be more than a ton of garbage. We pay that anyway. We're just off. We've already got additional expenses. Okay. Okay. All in favor of the motion. Please say aye. Aye. Any opposed. You're all set, John. You used a little more than your allotted time. Thank you very much. Have a good evening. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Take care. Thank you. Considering the Montpelier senior activity request for funding after failing to submit a petition to appear on the March 7th annual town meeting day warrant. Requesting funding. So do we have a letter from them? We have someone from the senior center. Like you can speak to it. Sarah Lipton. Yes. Hi. Good evening. Thank you so much for letting me join you this evening. I'm Sarah Lipton. I'm the director at the Montpelier senior activity center. I'm the director at the Montpelier senior activity center. I was somewhat new to my role and I wanted to explain what happened and why we missed our deadline. Having this being my first time through the ringer of town funding processes. We had all of our materials ready for you. But at the last minute. I learned from the city. That because we were, because we're part of the municipality of the city of Montpelier. We had a lot of people that were in the city of Montpelier. So we had a lot of people that were in the city of Montpelier. And so I had to ask for an increase in FY 24. There's a city policy that says I have to then ask for an increase from surrounding towns. But that meant that I would need to get petitions together. And I did not have enough time or volunteer support at that time to get those petitions ready. And so that's also, I got sick at the time. So it was a whole confluence of annoying events. That means I did not get our submission in time with the city of Montpelier. And I did not have time to address this issue on the advisory council and with our various members and. I have a really solid plan for next year. So this doesn't happen again. But in the meantime, it does leave us in a lurch for our, our budget for FY 24. And I'm sure you're aware to some degree of what the senior activity center does. We have. We have a lot of information groups for older adults. Meals that we provide both in person and home delivered. And we do have some home delivered clients in middle sex. Actually. Sort of have a, like a corner of middle sex that we serve through our meals on wheels program. And not sure how familiar you are with meals on and wheels, but it is providing more than just a vital. Nutrition to older adults, but it's also a really necessary wellness check. And so we have a lot of our older adults who live in middle sex, Berlin, et cetera, are very rural and really don't have anyone else checking on them. And so it's our meals on wheels drivers. Delivery that actually gives them that moment for an opportunity to be checked on. So. We're concerned that not having funding from middle sex will not only hamper our ability to serve the necessary meals to your parents, but also make it difficult for us to serve middle sex residents through our classes and all of our other events. And I, again, I know that we're, we weren't on the, you know, we weren't on the warning and we weren't able to be part of the ballot process, but we've been receiving funding from middle sex for many years. And pretty statically at about $7,000 for the last three or four years. And I just wanted to see basically if there was any way. For us in FY 24. I did meet with the town of Berlin's select board yesterday. They were very encouraging about helping to see if they could find funding for us because we also missed their timeline. And they wanted to know what you were going to decide. So I'm going to report back to them. This conversation. So, and I can report back to you after I talk to them. So, you know, I can go back and forth, which is just fine. And I am really sorry to cause more work for you all, but I don't know what you're going to do. What would your request be? What's that? What would the request be? If you have the ability to offer level funding. Which was 7,000. 7,000. Yep. So I'm sure you've probably heard this from Roland too. We value your services to our community. The problem is. The money's not in our budget. So we have to find it. And $7,000 is a big hole for us as well as a big hole for you. I know. So I don't know. I have no idea if we can find somewhere to get a grant to cover that shortfall or. What we can do. Give us a little, give us a little time to think about this and see what we can come up with. That would be our virtually our entire select board continues to offer. And so we're going to be able to. We're going to be able to do that. So I think it's going to be fun if we, we chose to give it to you, give it to you. And I'm. Reluctant to do that. And it's not. We don't value your value your program. We do. But we try and be consistent and apply the same roles to. Everyone. I understand that. And if there's anything else that we can offer, or, you know, if you, if it would be helpful for us to provide more of a presentation or. You know, put on an event for you or. You know, whatever it was, I mean, we have an incredible kitchen. Let us see what if anything, let us see what, if anything, we can, we can come up. I think we're all well aware. And I think our citizens are well aware of. Of the services and we know many of our citizens use your, use your program. So that isn't the issue at all. I'm pretty darn sure if you've been on the ballot, it would have been approved. But it's not. It's not. It's not. It's not. Once the budget's approved. I know. It's a challenge for us. The money doesn't, doesn't rain down from the trees as you, as you well know. I just have a question. Sarah, the people. This is Liz. Sure. Do the people. From middle sex pay to be members of any way, regardless to be, and are you saying that if. We weren't able to fund, you'd have to possibly increase the membership. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we have, um, our, um, Montpelier resident, uh, fee for membership is $25 supporting town. Uh, fee is $40. And anyone else is $60. So we would have to bump that price for, uh, middle sex members to $60. And we are under review about right now. We're in the middle of a review around our membership pricing. We're getting ready for our May membership renewal process. And it's likely that those prices will shift a little bit anyway, but there definitely would have to be an increased ask to middle sex residents. There's also, um, a different pricing, uh, structure for our classes. So, uh, MSEC members pay a certain rate and non-members pay a higher rate surrounding town members pay sometimes a different rate as well. So, and that, that would be supporting towns. Um, so, um, Um, Um, Yes, there, there's a number of ways that this would affect your membership and obviously it affects us as well. And do you have a list or do you have a count of how many middle sex people use our services or how many services they use that kind of thing? I do. Yeah. So, um, and it's, it's gone down over the years probably because of the pandemic. Um, you know, in FY 2019, there were a number of members and taking classes. Last year, FY 22, it was down to 68. And this past year, FY 23 is down to 34. Um, part of that is reflective of the fact that we haven't done our membership renewal yet. That's coming in May. So the numbers are a little skewy, but, um, but there has been a slow down trend that we're working to address and shift. But, um, there's at least. A couple of things that we're working on right now. Um, I think we're sure. And I think there's maybe three middle sex residents that are receiving our meals right now. And we also have middle sex residents that come for our congregate meals and sometimes to the curbside pickup meals too. So there's, there's multiple ways. You know, we also, um, we have our tax clinic that I think we have a couple of middle sex residents coming to, um, which is a free service through AARP. Um, I think that's a good point. Thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Well, um, We will take this under consideration. We'll get back to you. I mean, we literally have to figure out some way to find the money. I mean, I'm just. Just thinking while we're sitting here talking, maybe we could agree to, you know, subsidize our residents who want to participate in the, in the programs there as a stop cap thing. I just, I don't know where we're going to find $7,000. And I don't know of any grants that are available. Are you aware of any grants that are available? Well, we're applying to grants left and right. Um, I just submitted three applications in the last two weeks. I'm working on another four right now. None of them are. One of them is specifically to support membership. Um, but yeah, we're constantly doing grant fundraising. Well, if you were, if you were aware of any organizations who might find us to fund you. Yeah. Yeah, I'll take that to my team. That's a great idea that we had not considered. So I will take that to the team. I suspect there might be something out there. So I'll let you know. Do you have. Um, is that something that you would need us to write on your behalf and then you submit, or is that something you have someone on your team or select board that could write? Just so I'm clear. If you do have any funding sources, you could just tell us and then figure out. Okay, great. Thank you. I appreciate that idea. Thank you so much. I really, I really, on behalf of all of our members, we really appreciate your consideration. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Take care. Thanks. I'm going to report. Yes. We, uh, we've got our new truck back. Um, had to go out for repairs. The radiator. Sprungly. Um, Frank liner is in need of repairs. Um, continuously, uh, which brings me to the question we might want to consider, uh, unloading that for something else sooner than later. Before it costs us way too much. Um, I've called around. There are some options for us. Uh, if we choose to do something, certainly something that's going to take some consideration. Um, There is a new truck that's available right at the moment. Uh, there was possibly a used one coming down the pike, but I'm a little nervous for that one just because of the age and the issues that have been going on with it. So what year is our friend 19. 2019. Um, I mean, we've got a transfer case issue with it. We discussed that for the last time. But now we've got the. Well, frame that's broken again. Um, the ball joints are, are bad on it. Um, rust. Yeah. Rust. So just to be clear. I'm going back at my memory banks. We bought this truck because we had such a bad luck with one time truck. And we thought this would be better. How much was this part? When they bought it, I don't know. That was the price of the new truck. I have to replace the cost of the price line or estimated at 185,000. According to what was carrying for roughly, that must have been what they paid for it. I didn't get to know some sort of inflationary value. And it looks like it's estimated replacement right now is projected in 2027. Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't foresee it last in that long. What's that? I don't, I don't mean to be contrary, but then wasn't that. The international, wasn't that's 204. The new truck. Is available as 204. Right. And that is a seven yard single axle dump truck. With a plowing lane. The reason we're getting is because somebody backed out, otherwise we'd have to wait for it. It's one that a municipality ordered it. And they decided to go with a tandem axle. So we're back out of the deal. But just to give you some idea, how much was the freight liner when we bought it? I don't know what the freight liner is. I know what the Kenworth was. Kenworth was 230. Okay. To give some perspective of what the prices are. Well, thanks for the good news. I don't have any good news. What did you say you think you could get for it? You didn't get it. Oh, I don't know. No. No, I know that the new one is 204. So there is a use when coming down the bike to 2015. With 60 some 1000 miles. But it's been. It's had recently it's had about $12,000 worth of repair. For the. Somebody else. That's right. That's four years older. Normally without that's my point. So. And, and, you know, That's good information to have. We need to think about it. That's. That's exactly why we're changing around, potentially changing around this equipment, but we're already about to buy. One great big new truck. Yeah. Next year. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I wouldn't want to push that one too far out. Just because of. Yeah. Well, here's. I mean, here's the question for me and I hate the repairs. But. You know, where are the lines? Where are the lines crosses? They say. We better off with the truck. How many miles around the truck? We have. 26. Yeah. It doesn't have many miles, but it's totally rusted out. I mean. How could that be? Because it wasn't washed. And I was like, I'm sorry. Could you say that again? It wasn't washed. And it was a chloride truck for a while. In the way we use it. We used it. We misused it. That's what you're saying. Right. We had to. You know, It doesn't have many miles, but it's totally rusted out. I mean, How could that be? Because it wasn't washed. And I was like, I'm sorry. For a while. I'm sorry. Could you say that again? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Right. We had to. Because we did not clean the floor. Because we did not clean the floor. So who's going to want to buy a rusted truck? That's exactly what we're. I don't know. Yes. I was just wondering if anybody at the town level has been looking into and or applying for the federal infrastructure budget grants that are available. Because I've done a minimal amount of research. But I have seen multiple grants that a replacement truck could possibly be covered under that federal. I haven't seen that one. And I've looked. I spoke to Sarah and she said they bring it up. Okay. So there. So the way the budgets are working is they're annually enrolling. Right. So last year's deadline was September. This year's deadline again will be their second time at the end of September or October, but they haven't put out the entirety of the federal. It's a federal. And they haven't posted the entire schedule yet, but it's supposed to be just rolling from 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026. So they should be when they get the schedule out that far. We should see a deadline for that application for the same grant as last year, next year, next year in the year after, and we should be keeping an eye out for those. Yeah. I didn't know that was there. I've been looked at. I've been looked at. I think it was on the culprits. Oh yeah, there's that one. Yeah. And, but so there's like, there's a bunch of them. Like there's one for rural. Connectivity infrastructure, like we can apply for a grant to bring the internet parts of the town that don't have it. There's all kinds of them, but it's a rolling. Annual budget. So basically they get, they put it on the schedule. This is the window to apply. This is your deadline. That's it, but it's, it's rolling for the next three years. I don't know. I'll have to find that. It's, it's, it's not current application. I believe so. Yeah. You can find it on there, but the app grants.gov. The application isn't currently open right now because it's not on the schedule. They're like with how much at the federal level, they basically give you a window and you just got to keep an eye on the schedule to apply for it. So there's all kinds of them all year. It's not just the infrastructure budget, but there's, it's for any. I thought I saw your, your head nodding over there. There's literally tens of thousands of grants at the federal level that qualify every year. And they just come up and they're available. And you just got to keep an eye out for the window of application. So the fire ones that we've dealt with in the past for primary engines. You're not applying for primary engine. You're not getting it. I don't know what it's for, but there is one for, I want to say it's wildfire prevention right now. Yeah. They have those come out, right? They have sales like half 50% office for the water bags. Well, no, the actual infrastructure budget that they passed at like $900 billion budget, they have a grant that you can apply out of that federal level for wildfire prevention right now. That one I know the application is open currently. Just for prevention stuff or is it for, is for like anything that encompasses the prevention of wildfire. We did quite a lot of gear, whatever you need. Because a wildfire annually has equipment up that you can apply for, but it's, we don't need any of you've gotten it. We don't need any buying new bags. Each year doesn't do us any good. Fair enough. Well, thank you. That's good information. Well, bad news. I'm good at bringing it. But I mean, it does point out once again. And I know we're doing a much better job, but we need to appropriately take care of our equipment. Absolutely. This is what this is one of the consequences. It's not that the transfer case has anything to do with that, but if it's all rusted out, that sounds like that could potentially be on us. Well, there was an undercoding issue with it. When they first got it. And then remember, they had to take it back and get it. Now they're undergoing. Did you get a warranty on it? No, there's no warranty on that. Or anything. That's right. Yes, I tried. No. No, the people that were around. Well, except for. I don't know if that's what I've been told about the. So is it the body of the truck, which is rusted out of the frame and a lot of brain. Yeah. My understanding is that the problems that are having with the truck are have been problems in the past. Right. It's, it's been a consistent. Rusted revolving issue. So just, just one more question. So if we were to consider getting another truck. What do we get? We thought we were getting this truck because it would last longer, be better suited to. Our needs. And apparently. It's not heavy enough. That's my opinion. So can you get a single axle truck? It's heavily built. Correct. We bought the wrong truck. We bought the wrong truck and then we failed to maintain it. I was. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. The whole. The whole reason to get that truck would do the heavier duty or better suited to our needs, et cetera, et cetera. So. Chances are, if we were to get another truck, we need a heavier truck, which means more money. Well, is this one that you're looking at? I looked at. Is that a heavy enough truck? Yes. Is that the way we're going to give us what our other truck is? I mean, they look at it. Oh, I'm very proud of it. I'm probably sure. So this is the price that I gave you. It does not reflect the warranty. Just so you're aware of that would be an extra cost. I think you can send you the specs of that. That truck that he's talking about. If you want. You want to look at them. Or no. I'm happy to look. I just, I just wanted. For us all. When it comes, especially if purchasing these big capital items to make sure we buy. Equipment that's best suited for like, what we need. And we thought that's what we were doing. And somehow we didn't. We didn't do it. So. Anyway, it's discouraging. Anything else on highways other than mud. Snow. Ice. We want to. Talk about the. She. She. Last time. I think it's been resolved. Okay. Okay. What's that? Okay. Okay. So. So. Anyway, it's discouraging. Anything else on highways other than mud. Snow. Ice. We want to. Talk about the. The. The. The. The. The. The. Yeah, I was just going to wait until the end. It's just going to stay there. We got a. We got a notification. I got it. I got an email. Well, it was late for me last night. Showing a picture. It was like a water bar cut across. I assumed I didn't have anything to relate it to. Zach sent it to me and said that he did that because the water was. Running under wood fire or something. We haven't looked at it. And then Sam texted her. Email me this afternoon and said, if I was aware that. There was. Is it correct? You said excavation. I figure what you said. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. We have permission for alterations. And we did not. We did not. But we. Once again. The same issue. The same issue we've been dealing with over and over and over again. Yes, it is. Yeah. So what do we do? Block his driveway. Is there something that can be done to mitigate whatever the reason is that he's deciding to do. Is there something that you have the ability to find him for doing these unauthorized altercations. There's also been blocking. Like they're getting blocking the actual road. So there's been multiple issues and then they'll, I had brought up on August 16th. And the meeting. And it's a meeting. And I worked at that point. He was there and he was told to not do these things. And then I had emailed Vic Dwyer on 831. Because there was changes done. To see if there was permission. There was not on 920. I also emailed because there were changes done to the road to see if there was permission given. And there was not. And then yesterday. Right. They were not. It wasn't, it wasn't. It was. He told me about it. Last night. He didn't ask. He didn't ask. He just told me. I think the promise is getting an excavator. But it's done already. It's the road is slanting. You made the road to slant because we don't maintain that role. So. You're absolutely right. And this is one of the things we were doing. It was running to Sam's property. And look at that. The property. And you can't compete or vandalize somebody else's property. Because normally, like something that. That our broker would do. As it go down. And they'd be a crown. And so they'd be water bars on each side. So it's kind of level off. Both properties. I purchased the property in 2014 and there was never any water bars or issues with this at all. I have had issues with my neighbor and this started after. So I think- The bottom line is, in addition to the other issues you've been having, he's diverting the water away from this property and on the other property. Yeah, he's altering the road like back in August was the speed bump and I took a picture of it, but it's just it wasn't necessary, none of us knew about it, so we hit it. He's been regardless of the town policy as well, he has been altering the grade and flow of the road, which is against state legislation. And this is an ongoing issue and it is a town ordinance that he is breaking and I would like to know what the town plans to do to uphold the ordinance. Is that what it looks like? It depends which time I've taken pictures. I know the Highway Ordinance says that any applicant that wishes to upgrade the road or any portion must apply to this vehicle, there's better permit and the budget land should be notified. So that's our- Well, we're going to have to do some research and see. We have never, in all the years, we have never had the issue of ticketing anybody for anything like this. Whether we can get an injunction against him or what we can do or what the We actually had the state fund to get him to remove tractors that he was leaving. And there were other things he put in the road, but obstructing our way home. So we went to the police station and the police specifically said it is the select board that needs to handle it. They called him and had him remove it, but they said I needed to bring it here and that he knows for a fact there. You can escalate it to whatever it might be, and he had mentioned it. What I will do is to know tomorrow, Sarah is out of town, our select board assistant she'll be back next week, but before then I'm going to contact our town attorney unless everyone disagrees and just get his take on what the I also have- I wasn't prepared for this meeting, I just had got Vic's voicemail and so I ended up just coming in, but I have pictures of each time where he has altered the road where there's like five runoffs and 51 feet and it's all flat. I have him on video doing a runoff and this is all on my property. That's the issue. I have him on video doing a runoff above a culvert that is on his side of the road. So that's just going to erode the road and I'm no expert. But taking above a culvert is an existing culvert that's on the road and the water bar that he put in is literally over time. That's one of them, but I have multiple pictures where I have measured it as well, but it just keeps continuing. That's like if I were to go out and take a shovel like they did last night and do a runoff directing to their property, I wouldn't do that, but that's what's being done. So it's not just last night during the day? This is August. It's like it's from August through into September. Between altering the road, blocking the road. And another thing that has happened is him putting and or his wife putting political signs on my property that are in the town right away. This all started because he was divert my stream right onto our property and making trying to make it a white land. And I think the last meeting he said he maintained actually I filed the whole road this year. And usually I did a lot of track for this year. And I think his brother, John, I said he does not need to hand the road for maintaining it so that they can get in and out or snow plowing. And I think that's the only thing that's supposed to do without permission, which. Yeah. There's a smart board to authorize this. The wrong crew to do it. Well, I think it used to be class four like once or twice a year. This is great. And that might be even better since right now it looks like this instead of it was always flat. We've been up there since 62 and it was always flat. And it used to be a class three road. Yeah. His mom actually changed it to a class four. Class four because it's back in the 70s. And four more. Yeah. Oh, I remember. And I remember. Well, it's, you know, I realize that immediately it's your problem, but it's also our problem and we need to we need to deal with it. And, you know, I don't think I don't think sending Victor down there to warm is going to do any good. It hasn't been any good in the past. So we need to whatever the next step is. And I don't really think I don't know what the what the fine could be or would be or or any of that. But I'm not sure that's the answer either. But we have to wouldn't let me say wouldn't we wouldn't be right a letter. I don't know if you'd have your attorney right here. Wouldn't we write a letter saying stop. Well, cease and desist. Yeah, yeah. I mean, certainly, certainly we can do that. I don't expect that to be very effective either. I mean, I mean, he's already been given verbal directive to whatever the whatever the T whatever T if any that the town has before we take another step, I want to understand and know what the teeth are. So we can all agree that that's the appropriate action. Because I just don't see. I just don't see this gentleman changing his. This is based on letters or verbal warnings. He never has in the past. He's never paid any attention to anything as far as I know. And I mean, I'm willing to cause that's the last I know it's just the town lawyer's aim and maybe get guidance from him. Well, no, no, I'm I will I don't you start calling the town attorney. Oh, son, you have gone on. I'm happy to call. I'm happy to call the town attorney and he can he could very quickly tell me. What we can do. We're not going to incur any any great expense doing that. But I just want to truly I'm sorry this has been going on. We have tried to respond in the past and it hasn't worked. So now I think unless everybody disagrees, we need to move up to the next. I think somebody's waiting in the waiting room. Yeah, thank you. Well, I would agree with you. I'm going to run back home. OK. Exactly. Our assistant here is resetting herself. Unless his name again. OK, well, thank you for bringing that to our attention again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This is ongoing. There is nothing more difficult for us to deal with than disputes in between neighbors and when they involve town roads. Because it makes it either worse. Makes it even worse. So thank you. And any keep sending to Victor any any pictures or anything you you notice that's going on. So we have a record. Yeah, we have we have whatever you have sent us in the past. But any any ongoing. Yeah, and I we've been fixing it too. And I and I let Vic know normally I asked first to be given permission. And when he says no, I normally respond with I'm going to fix it. Yeah, because as the policy says, they need to leave it in as good or better condition. So not damage your property or make it hard to them for them to get home. OK, thank you. Quickly, and we're now behind schedule. Monthly meeting with the fire department. Well, so you got you all got a copy. Yes. All right. So seven calls for the month, 17 total. Our average number is your down a little bit, but our main response is for you. So that's better. We have been dealing with some people who has called and haven't been able to respond. The calls are listed there. The big thing is we've had the heating system have to be repaired twice in the last month. And I talked to the repairman yesterday and he said we can try to limp it along till spring summer, but it would not recommend putting any more because the heat transfer is leaking and it recommends to replace it. So we've got somebody coming the 12th of April to do it. So when you say the boy replacing the whole boiler needs to be replaced. It's and it's not when you when I say boiler, you have a thing that you think of. And this thing is not that this is what I'm serious. It's it's more like an instantaneous hot water heater. And you know, the heater. It's on demand. Well, it's it's a try what's called a triangle boiler. Right. Yeah. And we've had, I mean, this thing has been issued. We've had issues every year with it. So issues cost us a lot of money. We want to if this is going to and you can one of the pipes, one of the main pipes is already starting to corrode at the top. So that blasts, then we're out of heat. This didn't you indicate that it was part of the issue? Once your water, your hard water, hard water. And that's part of the thing I got the estimate on the water software. But the the heating system is a major item. Right. And I don't know what the price is going to be. You know, I got the one estimate. And the only reason I have born so I haven't gotten anybody else is because this happened yesterday because it was again, not lighting. So when they went in for a call last Sunday, Sunday night, it was 45 degrees in the bay. So it's like, yeah, we need to give somebody over. So fortunately, I found out about it Monday morning so I can get somebody not on the weekend on double time. Never does he call and they came out and fixed it. I had to put a new igniter in it and they got it going. But he said, we can try to look it along till spring summer, but I would not put any more serious money in that. Well, there's a good news because there's money coming in to pay for this. So it's I mean, as soon as I get the estimate and I'll try to get other estimates as well, not just the born such that they made sense since born's that's where we get our fuel from. And they had somebody who come in a couple of weeks to look at it, at least get an estimate from them and we'll try to we've got to have heat and we've got to have reliable heat spread. But hold on, I really think this is not if we need a new boiler and there's funding for something that's more energy efficient, we need to do that. We're not going to go and get a 30 year boiler. If we have if there's a five hundred thousand dollar grant to buy these things for free and we do energy efficiency, which is a part of our town plan. We had this is really good information to have because we can add it to this big grant that we're going to apply for that it's not just for all stuff, but for any municipal building. Well, when we use renewable energy instead of. Yeah, we would use we would use renewable energy. Yeah, we wouldn't replace it with an oil boiler or a propane boiler. I don't know if that building is set up for that. Well, someone would look at it, right? I mean, that would be at the very least that that's a part of also this whole process is that someone comes in and looks at every building and gives an assessment. This is all a part of this five hundred thousand. So what's the time frame of being able to? Well, the funding hasn't been released right this minute, but it's planning to be released soon for application and has to be spent by has to be completely spent by twenty twenty six. So there's time to actually apply for all this, but. But I really would say if there's any way that we can, you know, continue to repair this thing to get you through so that we can make sure that we can access lots of money and go with what the town plan is, like the town plan is to do this not to buy something for the next 30 years. So does this also include upgrading the electrical system? It could very well, yes. I mean, it's all related to it or does. I don't know. We haven't seen. I guess we're on it with this one. We're on a short time. Yes, I hear you. This is where they are. My next one. We're not going to make you cold, but at the very least, we need to explore if you're telling us that there's absolutely no way that thing could be repaired or holding on to its last legs. And it has to be replaced before next winter. Maybe this grant will be available by then. But I mean, it should be available by then, but we have lots of other things that are going on. And we can ask that question. We can say we have a municipal building right this minute that needs to be replaced. You know, there could be an opportunity to apply twice or something or to add on to your application, but we don't know yet. There could be a short term. There could be a short term thing. Yes. Who and when can we get them in to do an estimate, whether it's even viable to get that with that bill? We still we don't even have the grant application for that yet. Like this is all literally in the emails last week coming from the Regional Planning Commission. There's webinars that are about to start. Like we're getting that information as soon as we can. But this is like at the very least, we have to explore the opportunity. What I would suggest is if you if you're anxious to start working on this, that's when you're talking to these vendors, say, listen, we are interested in energy conserving energy measures, you know, and be that. I don't know what to expect because the propane ones are any efficient. They're like 96 percent efficient. But do you want renewable energy? I don't think that counts that. I'm guessing propane does not count in these, but I don't know. They might for big municipalities. It might be something that they that they have some efficiency. But I can't answer any of those questions because I don't have the information yet. They have not really some information to give us exact details of like. Because you're not we're not the only municipality who has this problem. Right. Like this is a statewide thing. And so they're trying to provide oodles of funding to pay for all of this upgrade. And we have this window of time between when they release the grant, which will be this year and to spend it by twenty twenty six. It's it's actually a short time. This is federal. It's federal. Yeah, it's. I think what you're trying to say is we don't want to go to a 30 year plan when six years down the road, we're supposed to be all no fossil fuel. Well, I'm just saying if there's if there's a technology that repeat our our buyer department and we can use money to pay for it and not have to bond for that, I mean, or or put $30,000 for it. Why wouldn't I believe I believe I don't know either. We're all going to learn a lot more about this. But yes, one of the things one of the things that is likely to be a lot under this is the air hot or heat pumps. And I don't know if there's and I don't know if if they make them in such a size that we could boilers, maybe. Our department. Yeah. I mean, there's going to be a lot of opportunity here. And so I would not. I would just say I'm glad to hear this, right? And that you're telling us this because this could very well. This isn't just about the town hall. This is about the town shed, right? We can weatherize the town shed. There's lots of things that we can do this. But in addition, if we're going the electric route on this thing, I would imagine we're going to have to upgrade the service to it. We're going to have to upgrade the generator to it. Probably so. So if these things aren't included, if it's just the heat system, there's a substantial cost. It's not. We're going to find out. OK, I'm just saying. Jeff, we're going to find out. We get it. We understand we understand what you're telling us. It's just what we don't want to do is go ahead and have the town plan to pay for a whole new heating system. A, if we can get somebody to pay and B, if we can get something that's more energy efficient and also complies with the town plan. So we're not going to leave you without a heating system, no matter what. And if heaven forbid, if heaven forbid that boiler fails in the next 30 days here or whatever we have left of the winter heating season and we have to get temporary heat in there, we'll get temporary heat in there. We're not going to let the fire department freeze. So have them have them do the immediate repairs, but don't order up any new quarters, please. But I mean, I've got to get more and I'm going to get more than one estimate. I know, but I'm just telling you, don't spin your wheels getting estimates for replacements of what we have, because it's likely that what we want is to get estimates for a different kind of system. Can I interrupt while we pass this angle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know we're past our we're past our five fifty. Do you have anything else? Quickly, Jeff, just that the water softener estimate is forty six hundred. Yeah, for the system install. OK. And that will also solve our manganese problem, which will allow us to drink the water again. Do you have your water tested? I'm just asking because a lot of middle sex water is it's, you know, you get a water softener, but it really doesn't you really need a filter that we had. He came in and tested it and it's a water filter and a water softener because we have particulates and iron and manganese. So you need to. So we need the softener and the filter. Well, the filter first and the softer. Right, that's what I thought. OK, so I think we want to just speak to this subject. That's OK. Larry. Oh, yeah. Larry having a problem on muting. I don't have permission, apparently. We're on it. I don't think we've got to mute it here. They asked to unmute. What happened at that? I did that. Nothing's happening. Whether it's going on or following. Yes, I did ask on mute and not doing anything. Can anyone else talk? I heard from Ray. Go out and come back in. See my go out, Larry, go out and come back in. He just said, see my above note in the chat. See my above note. Oh, no, no. That's something. OK, with the chats. What's happened in 2023, he's saying. The building has this or the bill has happened in 2023 and he can't unmute. He doesn't have permission, but. So that's the thing where somebody's coming in to assess each building. That's going to be done this year. Right. And we have to. There's certain funding you have to apply for in order to get like for to apply for this funding to do the assessment before you can apply for the 500,000 and they give it to you. Well, it's automatic. Like this is like you just apply and they'll give you the funding to have someone come in and assess. But we're not going to be the only town doing it. So the other issue we had under the fire department was considering a memorandum of understanding for him on service with the city of Montpelier, Barry, city deputy chief. And I know you're here or yes, you are. Is that is that a quick thing or do you need a few minutes? It really depends on what questions you have for me. I notice on your agenda, it said something about the ambulance service and that's not what I'm here to talk about. This is the questions that you had of. Who's my parents holding the funding and you're the funding. And right, right, right. Well, are you are you available to hold on for 10 or 15 minutes? Would that be a problem? No, no, sir, I'll be here. OK, thank you very much. So with that, I like to take up consideration of the energy code discussion where we are being asked to put the name on a proposal to create. Actually, I'll let you, you, John or Larry describe what we're actually being asked to do. Well, Larry's on mute, so I guess that falls on me, but I don't remember the details of it. Why don't I tell you what little I know and Larry, you know, let us know if I missed something. Oh, there you go. OK, take it away, Larry. OK, thanks, John. Yeah, thanks. This is Larry Sharp from the Middle Six Energy Committee. So the Energy Committee is strongly in favor of this and the proposal from this organ, this group of architects and others that's asking for this letter of support is proposing to study how best the state of Vermont could bring enforcement to the state building energy code. And the basic reason for doing enforcement is that the energy code in Vermont is at a certain level. That requires a certain amount of energy efficiency, but there's nobody out there checking to see if it's being done to that level. And surveys in the past have shown a lot of houses not meeting the actual code. And as the code continues to get stronger, as it is supposed to by law in Vermont, more and more people will fall short. And it's not necessarily intentional, but because they don't know. And the best way to remedy that is through bringing about not just enforcement, but a whole system of education as well. And so that's what this group is proposing. And our Energy Committee discussed this and we feel that it's a good thing to do for the state of Vermont. Individual towns can't do the enforcement on their own. We just don't have that capacity. So we strongly encourage us, the town to support a statewide effort. Okay, is that part of the global, when you say the laws, that's the Global Solutions Act. The law says that the building code will be made stronger. I don't actually know where that comes from. I think it predates the Global Warming Solutions Act. Because it's been getting stricter every three years for a while now. Would it be? Hold on a second. Go ahead. Would it be, would it be, would they entertain the idea? You know, you did say something about education, but, you know, I don't, I don't say I won't, wouldn't agree on it. But I think that if people were able to get their house like a blower, door caster, whatever, to see what, what it needed on a voluntary basis, not, not so much the person volunteers, but to have people, you know, approach, especially poor and older people in town to get them interested in it rather than mandated is what I'm trying to say. I don't know if it makes it so weird. I think I'm right. The code would pertain to new construction only correct. Now we have innovation projects as well. This does apply to renovation projects as well. Yeah. Okay. So it does address that. Right. Anytime a building permit is requested. Right. Right. But just, you know, I mean, I don't know, I don't know everybody in town, but I know several people that are paying like $1,500 a month for fuel, you know, fossil fuel, and they just, you know, they're paying it, but they don't really want to, but they don't really know they're at that point in their age that they don't, it's not real easy for them to, to change. And why don't I address that? I don't, but I just think it's easier than mandating. And then I don't know who enforces it. What's, what's the cost of enforcement? And who enforces it. Right. Go ahead. I would, I would just, I think those are really good questions, Vic, which I think it's important to realize that this is a study and somebody brought up the question of, well, that's just going to raise our taxes. And it's true. There's going to be some costs. I guess the real reason I think it's worth supporting is that. The reality is that there's some very low percentage, even though this code is in place, it's been in place for a while. I'm sure half of people don't even know what it looks like. It's very strict and it has air requirements, duct requirements, blah, blah, blah. But half the people don't even know it's there and it's not enforced. So if you don't use it, if you don't have time for it, you don't. So the reality is, even though I don't like big government making me do stuff, enforcement ensures consistency and it, and it's some way to ensure compliance without it. It's kind of a joke. So it doesn't make sense for the town to hire somebody or every town and 284 residential building energy code compliance officers. That makes no sense. There's like five offices in this whole state that enforced the entire public building life safety code. So it wouldn't take a huge number of people to add residential you wouldn't think, and that seems to be more sensible than trying to do it on our own or do what business as usual, which is the code gets stricter and stricter and then you just ignore it all more and more. So I think it's worth studying and supporting the idea. And I think some of these questions, which are how are you going to pay for it? Hopefully we'll come out of it. Okay. To Vicks question the, in terms of folks who really need improving of their homes. Efficiency of Vermont is there with all kinds of support, especially for lower income folks. So as a voluntary measure that is very much available. Word right there. Capstone as well. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the key word is income. And a lot of these older people. You know, they're, they're not that, you know, just because you're old doesn't mean you're poor, but doesn't mean that you're ready to spend all your life savings. I think it's a slippery slope. I would ask John. I don't know if you remember when I did my house a few years ago, there were supposed to be really super energy efficient and everything. But I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. But the, the jury was out on what was the best stuff to use. I mean, it's that, has that tightened up? I mean, is there a consensus of what, you know, what is best to use for insulation? What is best to use for. For whatever windows. On and on. I mean, I. When I did mine, it was, you know, I missed, I missed the mark on windows, but I thought I was getting great windows, but I really did. So I didn't answer that. What's that? I can answer that. And the answer is no. What keeps it exciting is that the rules keep changing. We used to not allow electric heat. Now we're sponsoring. We're pushing electric heat. So, uh, no, that's one of the reasons why, uh, every builder isn't expected to know the latest and greatest things that last. Uh, it's, it's an exciting time, frankly. It's an exciting time. But no, there's no right answer. And it'll be wrong tomorrow. But I'll just reiterate that this is all about enforcing the, the building. Construction and major renovations. Not for every house out there. That's just sitting as it is. Well, it's to be clear. It's, it's any renovation that needs to a building for them. It's not just major renovation. Yes. Right. Right. So, uh, we have to be careful. Yeah. We got, we got. So just hold on a minute. Yeah. Thank you. The code is supposed to be review every three years by law. That's what the. The lawmakers decided. Like 15 years ago. And that is a process that has become. Happening every three years. We just went through the review for the. 2020 three. Upgrade. And that's supposed to be coming in September. So at this point, the. Public service department is about to issue. The. The upgrade. Based on the consensus. Of the. Collaboration of many people that. And the participation also of the stakeholders. So that's, that's for that. In terms of enforcement. I mean, the code. By itself. It's very poor here. At this point, the code is 70% short. Of. The. High performance building. So. And with the. Upgrade that we are having. It's going to be about 50% short. So. And it's, it's the bare minimum. That you should. Follow. In order to have. A reasonable. I mean. Energy efficiency. Home. Or building. But that's still not the case. Our, our biggest challenge in Vermont. Is to. Weatherize. The existing stock. Which is very, very. Way behind. In terms of energy efficiency. And that's it. So we cannot afford to. Build. New buildings. That are going to require. Weatherization. In a five or. Or less time. In order to have. In order to meet. The goal of getting rid of. So it's, it's very important. One of the reasons why the code has been. So slow. In being improved. Is because the building community. Says that. Why. Should they. Improve the code. If there is no enforcement. Because the. The. The main field. The field is not level. If there is no enforcement. So while some people would like to. Do the right thing. There are others that. I want to. Do shortcuts. And get. And get. The. The business. So it's, it's. It's. It's. It's. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's. It creates a level feel. For everybody to compete. At the same level. Thank you. In terms of windows. All the windows that are being offered for. Renovations. And. So it's, it's. Paramount. To really start. Enforcing. The code. Even. If it's not. The best of all. But at least is. It creates a level feel. For everybody to compete. At the same level. And get. The best of all. And get. The best of all. For renovation. Anderson. They are not for Vermont. For Vermont. We need triple. Glaze. Double. No. No. No. Double hand. Windows. So. If, if, if you put to all those windows that are. Supposed to be energy efficient. Double hang and stuff like that. They may be a energy efficient for South Carolina. Or other places, but not for Vermont. So. You value of, I mean, our value of at least seven. And above. Really make. The window. Up with it for the month. Thank you. Welcome. So the one question is answered is only on. New construction or renovations. But when you had said it, even minor renovation. So if you do a minor renovation, do you have a plan to do that? Do you have a plan to. Redo your whole house as far as for energy efficiency? The areas. The areas that are impacted by that renovation. Would the permit. Yes. Okay. So are we, is this something that we're planning to vote on tonight? We have to go. Because the. We're just voting to approve. Right. The formation of the committee, though. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're not being asked to do it. We're not being asked for money. We're not being asked for anything. They just want to put our name. Put our name on the request. So if we're going to do it. Tonight's the night to do it. And what I'm hearing is that our energy committee supports it. Also Britsky wrote that letter of support. Yeah. Yeah. Is there any statistic on Ricky said that. I mean, you know, he indicated that. It would force people to do up to the coast. Is there anybody out there that's building, doing buildings right now? I mean, you know, building a house or whatever that's not trying to, to get an energy efficient as possible without. I think the answer is probably there are. A lot of people out there. I mean, one of the things, one of the things John Ray Hill and I talked about today is. When I looked at the new houses that are being built in middle sex. And I haven't been through every one of them. But the houses that I've seen in the construction I've seen. They're trying to do their best to be energy efficient. I mean, I could just make it just make sense. But. As you pointed out. If I have any concern in middle sex. My concern is the folks who have the older homes. Who are horrendously on energy efficient. And they're spending a fortune. My heating fuel. And if. This. Combination of work and enforcement. Can provide. But resources for them for me. It's a, it's a no-brainer. I mean, we know. You know, yeah. I agree with it. I agree with it. But. If that terrible old house that's costing $1500 worth of propane a month. If the person says I'm not upgrading in, I'm not doing any renovation. They wouldn't need just to be clear. Folks that aren't going through renovation projects would not need to upgrade their existing. Forced to. To. So you still got all these old houses. I know. That's the old, you can bring a horse to water, but you can make a great argument. You know, that's the whole, we know that there are a hundred thousands of homes that. That are in desperate need of weatherization and need all these kinds of repairs. We're aware of that. That's a problem. It's a problem. But that really isn't this. Yes. For my two cents as a commercial electricians worked all over the state of Vermont. I can tell you right now, even with inspectors on job sites, I just got off a job site not a month ago that they didn't even follow the electrical code there. And a state fire marshal was there last week doing the inspection. So just because you have a code and they're supposed to follow it. Doesn't mean that they're going to enforce it. I mean, if it's at some place that's got enough money so that they don't care. Right. Because a lot of times, a lot of times it's cheaper. To just build it anyway. And pay the fine. And they don't care. And not to say that, you know, the people of middle sex would do that in the residential setting, but I've worked with enough residential contractors at the same time, who will cheat out every which way they can. If they're able to. They, they do. I heard as they can. For as cheap as possible to make the most amount of profit. And that's the end of it. That's the end of it at the end of the day. Yeah. So, um, What say you'd select four members. Is this something more willing to put the town name on? I'm not. But I am. Somebody willing to make a motion. Well, I'll move that we support the. That we provide a letter of support. We don't even need a letter of support. I'll be saying. Support their initiative to form this. What? Is this. Yeah, they can be. What is it called? It's called the. Well, that. It's, it's essentially just provide a letter of support. We don't even need quite a letter of support. I'll be saying. Support their initiative to form this. What. Yeah. It's called the. But that it's, it's essentially just providing. Uh, support for their application. Yeah, for their application. Yeah. You know, we're not providing support for the committee itself. It's just saying, yes, we stand behind them applying for the funding to. To research this issue. For applying for a study or funding for a study. That's that's what this group has. They have proposed that they're going to submit an application for funding. To get a group of state folders together. To explore the feasibility of. What it may look like to try to get the state to provide. Compliance and enforcement within the energy. I don't have to be anti efficient. So I just want to know, I know, I want to know what. That's what you're saying. Okay. I think I got it. You just explained it to you. Yeah. Okay. We have a motion, but it has not yet been seconded. Or is there a second? I'll second the motion. Okay. So we have a motion that's been moved and seconded to. Put the town's. Support behind this, behind this project. All those in favor of the motion, please say aye. No, no. No one opposed. We've approved it. I will let, I will let, I will let Sandy know that you can put our name on. On the proposal. Thank you all for your participation. And come back when, when, when this, when you get the study, because that's there'd be lots of issues to get to weigh in on. Yeah. There you go. to weigh in on. Yeah, there you go. Thank you. Thanks for coming. So we are back to the fire department and the ambulance. And the MLA. The MLA. The member of understanding. Right. So you all had questions last month about that and Joe is the one that answers. So Joe, you're on. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Absolutely. Can I address the board for a second, Mr. Chair? Yes. So my name is Deputy Chief Joe Algworth from the various city fire department. I'm the Vice President of Capital Fire Mutual Aid for the record. The MOU in front of you addresses the future upgrade of the radio system that does not impact the current $2.44 million in funding that we have been tentatively awarded by the state of Vermont, just so that everybody's clear that that money is like in a savings account. So like when you plan to buy a cloud truck or a fire truck, we are saving for the future. When I came out to this position 15 years ago, we were struggling and trying to find a way to upgrade the radio system. We are very fortunate that Montpelier was the fiduciary for this grant request and that we were tentatively awarded. The state is doing their due diligence and they're hiring a project manager to assist us. But the radio system is owned by Capital Fire Mutual Aid, which the town of Middlesex is a member in good standing, hence you guys own a portion of the radio system. This allows us to upgrade currently with the funding but also create a savings account that will be invested and put down the road for 10 years when the radio ages out. It allows us to be able to pay for it ahead of time so that we don't have to burden future municipalities or fire departments to figure out how we're going to upgrade it. This came as part of a directive from the governor when he was starting to put together the funding for regional dispatch systems and one of the requirements of the grant was to have an MOU in place understanding the obligation to the system but also a capital improvement plan which was the spreadsheet that I sent to Chief Coons. So I'm going to leave it there. I'll answer any questions that you need. I hope that gave you a little more direction. Thank you. Order members, questions? So is there some confusion on the MOU for the ambulance and the MOU for this? There is confusion in our agenda and I was confused myself. So what we're talking about is the radio dispatch. The ambulance was already, you already signed that one. Okay. So do you have pure Joe Benish? No, I didn't have it. You have no skin in the game? Essentially we don't because this is for you guys signing that you understand what's going on for the radio system. And I thought you had some questions last month about it. As far as we're concerned as a department, we need a radio system and we know we've got to pay, the town's got to pay part of the radio system plus there's grant money out there that has gone to the radio system. So it was more, you guys had questions on that not clear was holding it and what was, how much money it was going to be and I think those were the questions. I think our question was, I believe we had an estimated figure of what our share of this was going to be. Yes. I don't have that material here with me. I saw the ambulance and I wasn't thinking radio before I came down to the meeting so I don't have it with me. Yeah. Approximately $2,943 a year. It's developed by the former manager for the Waterbury, town of Waterbury, Mr. Sheplek. He developed it through the Equalized Municipal Grand List, which makes it more fair across the board for all the municipalities, especially those that are not as wealthy or have such a large grand list. So it became more fair. So that's why this was developed. Just so you know, this mechanism has been forwarded to the legislature and put out other regional dispatch centers to adopt a similar way. So we're actually gold standard for the state. How many towns have approved the MOU so far? I currently have five. Can you tell us who they are? Yep. It's the City of Berry, City of Montpelier. I believe I got the town of Marshfield, and I believe I just testified for the town of Weitzfield that approved it. And the town of Chelsea just get back to me and they're on their board. They had just a couple of questions like you folks. And I believe Williamstown was the other one. The town of Berlin actually paid the whole 10 years in advance. So there will be paid Maybe we should have them pay for us. Okay, so I don't think we do we have it here designed? No, we don't. I think unfortunately, we're a little unprepared for tonight and I apologize for that. I'm going to suggest that we take this up at our next board meeting and we can have it in front of us and review it and approve it. But I think there was also a question about when we had to pay this money because it hadn't been budgeted. And I thought originally when this was presented to us, it was something that either we paid by the year or within so many years, we'd have to pay the bulk of it or something. Is that the same thing we're talking about? I don't know. So this is designed to be an annual assessment by the Capital Fire Mutual Aid so that when you receive your annual mutual aid dues, you also receive the invoice assessment for the radio system. So the next assessment and mutual aid dues will be due after July 1. Okay, so there was definitely some confusion on our part because I think we were talking about whether it was a 10-year lump sum calorie in that $30,000 figure or we were investing over the course of that 10 years. So basically what they're saying is what we budgeted for our fiscal year 24 is going to be $2,000 higher. Yes, ma'am. I've got it here somewhere and I'm trying to find it. Roughly $2,950, sir. Yeah, okay. There was a whole spreadsheet. That came with a year after year and it gave us town by town based on her capital level, what everybody's contribution was expected to be. Yeah, so we will take this up at our next meeting and we will get back to you. Thank you very much for being here tonight. Does anybody have any other questions about this, board members? Hold on, he was trying to say something. If you would like me to come to your next meeting, I'm more than happy to do so. I think the questions that I had based on that now that I'm clear on what we're talking about, I think you've answered the questions I had. Yeah, I think so. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. Okay. It has the things that we're talking about. I did not find the spreadsheet. Well, are you sure about the spreadsheet and not just a chart? Could have been a chart. There's a lot of colors. It was yellow. Okay, because this email does not have a spreadsheet on it, but this is the one that had this new memory. I can send it to the clerk if you would like. That would be wonderful. Yeah, that's fine. Sure. That would be great. Thank you. You're welcome. I'm going to give it back. Yeah. Dorinda, thank you for your patience. I don't think I have anything to be honest with you. Nothing I can think of at the moment. So we have orders, verification of road commissioner compensation and statements at the 314, 2023 meeting. Is that you Dorinda? No, that is Victor's request. Okay, Victor, are you done with the part of everything? Yes, I'm all set. Thanks guys. Victor, you're on. Yeah, I think there's something in the minutes that says that I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be road commissioner or not. And I apologize to the collect board and especially to the town clerk that I brought this up, but I was upset. I was questioning whether I wanted to do this or not. And it was kind of an impromptu thing. It was a, it hadn't been going on for a while, but circumstances in the last half hour, I didn't have time to think about it, but as it turned out, you know, I certainly like working with Eric and I certainly like doing it. I spend a lot of time on it. And I, but really when I read in the paper this morning, it was kind of, you know, bad leg signs and stuff that come through. And it was all the disruption down in Heartland. And I don't think we need that here. So I'm just going to move on. Okay. And when I say move on, I'm going to stay as road commissioner. Yeah. And I don't know how many issues other than that. Thank you. It is, it is what it is. And yeah, we don't really need it. No, but hopefully that I appreciate that. Hopefully that we can all come together as far as the compensation. I didn't, I didn't, okay, from that very thing. Yeah. Thank you. We'll do that on the business. Okay. Um, discussion of town employees use of leave time. Did we resolve that the last time? I don't get it. Duranda said it was resolved. I don't know. Well, that wasn't, that was just how the hours were calculated. But Eric has is well aware and Cheryl's well aware. Okay. Okay. Great. So what happened was that Eric and I went down and the question I think you had, don't let me put words in your mouth was that what I heard was that that the employee was buying time. Yeah. So the situation was the employee who was paid time off over and above 40 hours during the work week, which is essentially kind of buying their personal time. Yeah. So the comment was that my understanding of the existing policy is that paid time off is basically designed to be there to bring them up to their 40 hours. And it's not that they worked overtime or they worked, you know, 38 hours and they put in for eight hours of personal time because they're out for an entire day. And there's essentially six hours over and above the 40 hours that they're being bought out of their personal time that the policy was designed to allow them to use two hours of personal time or vacation or whatever to get them to their 40 hours. And then the rest of that remains in their bank for use at a later point in time. But essentially going over that 40 hours with any of that paid time off is a buyout of that time. Which we don't. Right. But he doesn't but he's perfectly okay to do that if that's what he wants. He's actually helping the town because he's never going to get that day back. And it's like, it's a day that he's not going to take off in the summertime when we need to force. But it's not, there's not anything, you know, it's not nothing in our policy right now that makes that not okay. So if you want to change it, we're going to have to change the person. I thought this happened. It's always, it happened a while back. March 1st. Determine March 1st, whenever. March 1st, it was on the 1st. No, no, no, this happened previously. Yeah, it was in the minutes about a year ago. That was. No, and that was what it came out to that we don't pay over, we budget for 40 hours a week plus the overtime that we get. So if they use more than 40 hours a week, that's pushing you out of the budget. How can I push you out of the budget? Because you're now paying for 47 hours a week. Right, but that's seven hours you've got to pay at some point. At some point somewhere, but they're not working though. So that number is budgeted. You know, so you're putting in more money than what is actually budgeted at a different time. You know, I would be willing to help just if you make payroll records available to me, like you could do an analysis of, you know, what I heard from last meeting is perhaps there's employees that would rather us rather the town move to the day eight hour and then over time versus the 40 hour. And I do a little bit of research and it's, it's not out of the norm. And some states even go a lot further where you have to, if you work more than 12 hours, all of a sudden it's twice your hourly rate. So if you do the math, what I've found, it kind of levels out that if you do the eight hour and they, they get their eight hours and, you know, say they work 10, you get that two hours of overtime, say they work under eight hours, perhaps one or two days. And then they do want to sickly. If you parcel that all out over time, it's not a lot more money. And it kind of makes it easier for the employee to feel like they're getting their overtime that that 1.5 allowance of their regulator pay. Well, I think the overtime is certainly a different conversation. So I'd be more than happy to take it, you know, if you want to do a data dump and a spreadsheet and do an analysis of, you know, how many overtime hours were there actually spent? And what would that cost have been? It's a paper request at that point. None of this is in a database that can do a data dump. You're essentially going back through time sheets. And for example, like the, if you look at the labor logs for like, for like this, this week's essentially, you know, you've got, I was looking at this, there's a situation in here where essentially, you know, you've done an employee that took a day and a half off, they worked, you know, a couple longer days. And, and in that essence, you know, we're not paying any overtime here. And then they're getting, they're getting, you know, eight hours of overtime throughout, throughout here. No, not even including sick leave, just thinking about worked out. So, so in that situation, you've got a full day's pay for, for an employee at a rate of 1.5, that's over and above anything that the town would have paid before. Gotcha. So I think that, you know, there's a couple of different conversations here. And I, I truly believe that one now is not the time to, to come and, and try to make changes to these policies because it's just after the budget has been completed. Right. If we're going to, that if we're going to take this, and we're going to make recommendations for change, then this needs to be reviewed as a whole, as far as the policies with the road crew, so that they understand the changes and the implications, because quite honestly, one conversation would lead me to recommend one, one way and another piece of that conversation would lead me a totally separate way. So I feel like to make this fair for the guys, if they're truly pushing this, which I understand them. Okay, okay. All that it's a point. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it isn't something that. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, Victor. They're not. My understanding is that when I asked you, when I asked you if they were pushing this issue, you said that they weren't. And not at this point, I mean, not right that time, not right now, right now, but they will. And I thought we were supposed to bring this up early so that we would have it for the next budget year. So that's exactly what my previous statement was leading to was that if we need to review the policy as a whole and make recommendations for change, then I would actually encourage all of the road crew and any town employee quite honestly, because it doesn't just affect them, it affects everybody else in town employment to sit down as we do this. Review when we talked and part of the goals is to do a review of the personnel policy more in depth than has had happened over the past. And I would suggest that that's the time and prior to that doing some of that analysis to understand what the true cost of the town is. Right. So it'd be like if you flip to the scenario and then you came up with a number. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, and to my other point, and I'd be happy to go over this after, but I think this was this was an example where they took some time off. There was no, there was an hours worth of overtime of actual work time. And then then reversing it the other way, you're into it for five hours. So just like things like that, but then they're taking additional days off. And I think that's a whole separate issue. The personal time bringing up to the 40 hours versus extending beyond that, you know, that's another recommendation that I would say, if you truly want to buy people out, I would much rather say, if the cut offs there, then put in a request for a buyout and don't use your vacation time. So we're being more productive. We can budget to that much easier than, than, you know, trying to deal with it in this manner. Yeah. But that and to answer your question about it, they don't bring it up right now, but they will. And they have in the past and usually comes out later and then we don't have it like it did last year. And we don't have time to talk about it. I mean, their, their issue is, you know, that it hasn't been, it really doesn't buy out that way is that, you know, I work for all of ours or whatever 15 hours. And then if I take a day off because I'm gotten tired, then I lose all my overtime and a half. And so we don't think I know, I think that if, if you didn't do that, I think it would actually be advantageous to you in the, in the summertime as far as being able to, to schedule your health better. But I couldn't be wrong. I'm sure you could tell it very well could be. And again, I think it just warrants. And it's not just me. It's me and Eric. So I guess it is the crew. May Eric and I've talked about it several times. Guys, just quickly, I noticed that a year ago in May, we went over our, our personnel policy. So if that's something you want to do, that could be on our full. And I am looking through it. And I don't see anything about that specific thing without going, you know, over time, but getting paid extra for that thing. But normally that's not how it's done. I just wanted to also say one quick thing about this. Do we care? I mean, I personally care because it's not the way I would do business, but then he, the Erica approves his own time sheet. Is that always been that way? I do feel like I had something that I would trust Eric. Second set of lies. I heard somebody else doing that. I think the checks and balances is good. So I would tend to agree with you. Like that it would be Vic Ezra, commissioner of the science, this time sheet. I know that we're approving it when we signed it, but I just think for the sake of, you know, I think that's probably right. I've not had Vic even knows what he's going to let everybody know. Right. So, you know, at that point of like, oh, I see that you've done over time for the last six weeks. Do we need another helper? Right. Something like that. Right. Like that's the thing. That's normally you even a CEO doesn't approve their own time sheet. Someone else does. I would rather just see his signature on there than having it twice. Me too. It's deciding it twice. So are we making a decision about that? Well, are you making a motion? Can we with not on the agenda? And I feel bad that Eric's not here. I don't want to like throw him through the bust. I just, and this has nothing to do with that, but how is that any different than me submitting my own time sheet or Sarah? It's exactly the same situation. Right. You just have a single signature on yours and staff. I don't know, you know, this is a good thing to bring up when we're looking at the personal policy. We look at the whole list. So Russ, you're patiently sitting here listening to all this kind of middle sex. You know what? Do you have something for us this evening? Well, I have some short things. I just want to keep some things in your mind that you'll find out if you're interested in them at all. But the earlier discussion about the wheels on wheels, we will talk with some of the people that can't meet and see if we can't raise so many as well. I was going to say that we could also reply for some funding from the middle sex community fund. Right. So, you know, I'm not going to make any promises for it. No, that's great. I mean, I think it's going to be some kind of, you know, combination of things. But I know you understand the issue. I mean, the budget has to pass. They missed the vote, but they're an important, valuable program for us. Yeah. And I use wheels on wheels from one of my sisters in another state. And for all of those reasons. So I understand it's important. Maybe we match you. Yeah. We'll talk to some other people and say, but there's a lot of other things you guys covered. And that's nice. We can talk about it. But you know, in the realm of water and our money and housing and all of that kind of stuff, which is on people's minds. I was listening to the governor's press conference a little bit today. But you know, we drilled some wells up on the galaxy land. We're going through an entire process of proving, you know, what the drawdown rates are and replenishment and all that kind of stuff. But we know we have around 100 gallons a minute right now. And then we'll see how that proved up. We hired Otter Creek Engineering, a very good firm to do initial planning, rough planning for water system for the properties up there. We know what we want to start with. We have ideas about what phase two would be, housing and whatnot, but we don't really know. We don't know how many units we might be able to do and we don't know how we want to use the land. But the thing that comes up to me is I asked Otter Creek to tell us what it would cost us to put our water system up late on the property roughly and what would it cost to put a municipal system in that would go a little bit beyond 100 feet, probably up to crossing the river, just as round numbers. I have a nine page report and I'm looking for the executive summary. So I don't want to say too much about numbers, but numbers are somewhere between five to $10 million, something like that, that might be able to happen. And I'm willing to be a good citizen and provide opportunity for the town. We know that there's a lot of ARPA money and stuff available for you. This is something that's interesting to you. And as a planner, one of the things I think about from a town type of person perspective is when you have infrastructure, you can control what happens with that infrastructure. So you could say, for example, that you wanted to have some percentage of the water be used for affordable housing or low income housing or jobs or whatever kind of mix that you wanted to do. And you guys should talk about this amongst yourselves, obviously. I think we, the Galaxy, would be able to come up with the matching money or so the town would kind of be able to get water for almost nothing. You know, would we become a user? Would we get a different rate than somebody else? I don't know, I haven't thought any of those things really out. But I think if there's some interest in fertility, I would bring the Otter Creek people here to speak with you guys about what it would need to do that. They're used to getting the grants, all that kind of stuff. They got $3.5 million for more town for a septic system. They don't even know where they would put. So I think the answer is, and I think this is probably almost exactly what we told you the last time is, we'd be foolish not to be interested in this. And you know, how it would all play out, how it would be paid for, what kind of grants would be available. You know, we know we have a water problem in the village, and both from the point of view of just residential and commercial supply, but also in terms of fire protection. Yeah, I have price outpidems and up sizes of pipe all that stuff. Because then that gives you a whole nother basis of commercial infrastructure for sprinkler systems all that. So what I would say, and I presume other board members agree, if you don't agree, please speak up. But as you work your way through the planning process, keep in touch with us and when it's the appropriate time, I think it'd be great to hear from the Otter Creek people about what they have to say. They're just about ready. That's why I want to come. And I'd send something to Sarah in February, but I think she was busy and I thought, well, I'll just pop in here. Okay. You know, bring it up to you guys. Because the Planning Commission, if you go this route, should probably begin to think about zoning in a different way. When you know you have this kind of asset available to you, it would make a difference to infrastructure. Right. It might make it possible for the old railroad station to actually be something if they could get water. I mean, not that it isn't. Nicholas is his own person. But yeah. We get it. Well, thank you very much. Yeah. We're also excited as your plans come along for and your new project up here. We're very interested in knowing about that as well. Yeah. What we want to start with is the thing that we're leading with is daycare for 120, 150, and with some other four-story building, basically three-story building with some kind of housing in the roof, a barn-like structure for maker spaces, and a little bit of sort of event kind of thing, weddings, that kind of stuff, that kind of scale thing. Very similar to what we're doing at Camp Me, expanding on the same philosophical thing, which is our driving thing is to trick people into getting together by entertaining them and forgetting that they have any differences. We've certainly done well at that over here. So we're continuing to do that. And here at Camp Me, this year will be a year of just trying to make it look like we're taking better care of business. Yeah, you forgot your jacket. You know, paying things, paying something for clients. You know, there's some things I've got. We're hoping to get much more Yeah, it's all about those kind of things. The trying need in the community is for care for zero to six engines. And oh, and I've also had, we want to begin with a little bit, probably 12 units of housing, some percentage of which would be subsidized affordable. It will be the first 12 that we do, probably three structures for units a piece or something like that. But nice, nice architecture. All that kind of jazz. And I've been having conversations with Downsbury about how do we go and do these things in a way that's a little bit different than been done in the past. So if we find a different way to finance them, the largest single cost for a home is the interest on the loan. So if we can take that out, it makes it real easy to make affordable housing affordable and in a way that people can build equity and not have too much of the equity taken away. So when they need to move on, they actually So anyway, I can go on in this way quite a bit. Thank you all. No, we're just trying to be good citizens. So we appreciate that very much. I'll keep you posted on our tweet. I'll try for your next meeting. Okay. That makes sense to communicate with Sarah. Yeah. And it'll probably be up in an hour. Okay. Okay. Underwater. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. So we have a driveway permit. You got a driveway permit. Eric has signed off on it. Caretta. Yeah. And I think just you and Peter have to sign it. But I believe we have to be emotioned by the board, doesn't it? Isn't that the usual process? We have, where is this? Mace here? 418 Mace here. What does he need? A new driveway or new here? Another driveway in the middle. They got a driveway. There's three driveways right around. I think they're going to put another place on it. Oh, really? Yeah. And then the driveway goes up and then everything is swinging to the west. So is there a motion to approve? Eric has signed off on it. Oh, move that we approve the driveway permit for the car keys. Hold second. All those in favor of motion please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We have approved it. We went and looked at it one Monday, I think. That means. Yes. There's an email from Sandra Levine for a contact with Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. They approved it at their last meeting. This is for a contact that would fall within the Planning Commission's budget for consultants. And it will be completed by the end of the fiscal year. And it says that Peter has to sign it on behalf of the town. And she can come in on 8th of July and give you an update. Public services. Yeah. What is the contract for? Consulting services. With Central Long Beach. 2197 dollars and 38 cents. It's Christian Marnell, official. That's exciting. Call me on Friday. He's been there for two weeks and he's very happy. Now the effective director. Good for him. I think he will be. Yeah. I think he will be good. Is there a second motion for the contract that's being signed now? I think it was Dick. Oh, so there was one motion for all of the board orders. Is that? We signed the board order. It won't be a motion. This is a contract for with Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission. Do we need a motion? That's what I'm asking. I don't know. I think in the past if it's within their budget. So I don't think you need to be honest with you. It's just part of correspondence. The other thing I had is when we were appointing people to the budget committee, we were supposed to be filling it. There was three open positions. We appointed the two people, new people, but Randy was not reappointed. So, oh no. Oh no, Randy. So there was actually some confusion. I can give some backstory. So I had talked with Sarah about whether or not I needed to do anything. And she said no prior to kind of meeting. So I thought it was all set. And she, I will make the motion on it. I would happily continue on. I'll second it. It's fine with me. All those in favor of appointing Randy to the budget committee. Congratulations. Thank you for doing that. And then I think if you want to talk about the phone. Yeah. So the good news is I just got the official work today. I already knew this, but I couldn't share it. That we got the grant for the town hall planning study. So VIA, we just, excuse me, I think we budgeted up to 28,000 and we're going to do a 10% match. So it's about 2,800 that we'll have to pay. And the rest will be covered by the grant. So that's great news. And we basically, I had to ask VIA if they would post date their invoices, or what is it called? Not post. Yeah, post date. So they've turned their invoices to be March 1st, so we can pay for that. It doesn't matter when they've done the work, it's just when they do the dating of the invoice. So they can have done the work before March 1st, but they just can't import this. Thank you. And thank you, Sandy Levine for your time. Thank you, Sandy. So then we're waiting for, so Sarah had, not Sarah, Sandy and Darinda and a handful of us were in the town hall and did like a whole like, you know, walk around and answered kind of all the questions that VIA had about space needs. Sandy submitted that to them. They need to talk to Sarah when Sarah returns. So they're not doing anything till Sarah gets back. Once Sarah gets back and can address some of their things with them, we'll have a, again, a smaller meeting of just committee people, not the whole board, and we will continue to update you on sort of the next steps. So we are behind schedule, but it's okay because of this whole grant. By a month or so? By at least a month, I would say yes. So, but then, you know, just thinking about the money for the municipal, because this is something that we have to really be thinking about and moving on relatively quickly, which is getting this study done by VIA, applying for this funding to have walkthroughs, because you have to have that, even if VIA has done their own walkthrough, still can have one of these people be doing walkthroughs through our municipal buildings. Figuring out what we can pay for in this $500,000 grant that we can apply for up to $500,000, which is for energy upgrades and sort of the work associated to get to that, you know, energy upgrade for your municipal building. So that could include the town hall. It can include the fire department and their heating system. It can include your town shed, right? So, and my sum should be we apply once, right? Like we have the big application that we're doing for this, for this grant and, but it's going to cost more than that to do whatever other things we may need to do through the town hall, which means that we'll have to have educated our town on one, what we want to do with the town hall and two, what funding is available and the timeframe on that, because we may need to bond for some of this town hall as well, right? And so we have to get the town's approval, but we also want to apply for this money because it has to also be spent by 2026, which is not that far away. So there's a lot of moving pieces. And what we can't do is put this off. Like this is, we have to be moving, which we're doing now, but like, I'm not going to want to do this by myself, right? Like I'm not going to want to be like, okay, it's time to apply for the grant. I mean, the energy committee has offered to help, but there's a lot of stuff that's coming down the pike that we need to be able to not be pushing down the road because this funding is one time, once in our lifetime, when we kind of need it funding, right? Once in our lifetime and times in the board and in middle sex. And it's tremendous opportunity for our community to do a lot of the stuff we've been talking about. We are also probably going to need more. We know we're going to need more than 500,000 if we're really doing, you know, a full renovation for the building, but a lot of that could be paid for because a lot of it's going to be doing these energy efficient things, right? So that's the timing is going to be very, like we have to figure out how we get this all done and get buy-in from the town. We have on top of that, we also have to commit to the offer funds by the end of January. Oh, and I just brought up. Yes, thank you for saying that because I just brought up that spreadsheet. I wanted to ask you, Bridget, did you give money to the fire department for turnout here? Radios, handheld radios. So that's not turnout here. What's turnout here? Okay, we gave the $70,000 for air packs. Right. Okay, so we also budgeted here $20,000 for turnout here, which was estimated to be $13,000 to $20,000. We also did $4,000 for the OWL system, which I don't know if you've paid for that out of ARPA yet. We did not pay for it out of ARPA, but it came in like, I think, after that. Okay, but it was a couple thousand at a time. Can you reimburse yourself with the ARPA money? I think we can. So maybe I'll just put that in as $2,000, but some of this we had before we knew about this $500,000 grant, like $35,000 new heating system for the town garage, right? I don't know what that says, that new heating $25,000 for the town garage. Yeah, so those are things that we might not have to spend ARPA money on, but that can be put into this, this $500,000 business. These aren't even allocated, these aren't the ideas. I think this was just our, no, no, I'm sorry, I should be more clear on that question. The $500,000 grant is that 2026 deadline, is that allocated or is it spent? I think it's, I'll look again, that's a good question. In my head, I had it as spent, but it might be allocated. It might just be allocated, so that was the one. Yeah, allocated makes more sense for 2026. Well, most of the ARPA money that I've been familiar with is that you've got to have it allocated. Yeah, okay. It has to be spent. Where did I just read about it? It was in an email that we got from the governor or something like that. Yeah, but you don't have to answer that. Yeah, you're right. I think 2026 makes more sense for allocation. Yeah, you couldn't get, because all the people that are going to be doing this are you can get the work done. It's, that's a bunch of the conversations that I've been having. It's the buildings and grounds right here. Yeah, some of it is, is, as money flow through those entities, they put a spend on it, even though the federal requirements are that it's allocated and that's their way of trying to push it along with the expectation that they're going to have some folks that are going to overrun it and they'll give them extension, but I've had pretty open-come communications with some folks about that. So yeah. And was this 500k, that's, I mean, that's like a, there's, what's the possibility of any of it getting rejected? I mean, is it done to you? It's not, I don't think they're really rejecting of like people, if you, if you have a project, they're going to fund it. Okay, that's the understanding. When I talked with Eric, he was very clear that they were encouraging people to apply. Okay. And this is saying implementation grants for weatherization, thermal efficiency, and supplementing, replacing fossil fuel heating systems with more efficient renewable or electric versions. And weatherization, you know, could be, I don't know, I haven't looked into that, but again, there's a whole webinar that I'm scheduled to watch, but, you know, could it be windows? Right? I don't know. And those would sort of be $100,000 right there, right? But so I don't think I, my guess is we wouldn't have trouble spending $500,000 each or three dining buildings, right? So, and it's just a matter of priority, right? So, the date for our existing art book? So I have to file a report of what we've spent in the last year that has to be filed between April 1st and April 30th. And that's what we've spent today. But then we have to allocate it by December of 24th, I believe, and expend it by 26th. Yeah, we've still got time before time goes by. Right. I mean, it really is, it really is just amazing to me when I think over the years, how we've struggled to find money for projects like what we're talking about tonight, whether it's a truck that we really would prefer not going to have to buy or a new heating system for the fire department, which I'm considering to be a new heating system compared to what we've got in our other buildings and it's already good fun. Anyway, we really have an opportunity to dramatically upgrade our town infrastructure. And I don't know if we can if we can make it work this time, but it would be just an unbelievable thing if we could somehow get grant money and create a water system for the village. I mean, that would be a many... Sure, well, we could send it to every select board member's house, maybe. How about that? No, but I mean, sincerely, I don't mean to sound facetious. I mean, when all this money is flowing, we need to be on top of it and be deliberate and make sure we get our share of it because somebody's going to spend this money. I have another comment, but to Steve's point earlier, just being aware that some of this money's out there, you know, talking with folks that are in those worlds, you know, just, hey, have you heard of anything new? I mostly know about the grant stuff just from the politics that I followed, but a lot of the jobsites that I've been on, you would be... If you heard some of the conversations like at some of the hospitals across the state, you'd be absolutely floored with how much money they throw out the door intentionally just so their budget doesn't get decreased with falling quarter and it's all federal grant money. And, you know, and those opportunities come up every year for small towns and especially after the infrastructure bill that they passed the $900 billion, the majority of that bill was to restructure all of our small rural towns. I mean, that's why they include things like the fair internet access grant and it's literally just to a grant. You can apply as a small rural town to get connectivity to the internet for your citizens that don't have it, you know? So, like, I know, like, CB5 has been a topic for the board a couple of times, like, there's grant money there that could pay for that instead of taxpayers, you know? The other initial comment was there's the list that you've got going for the potential ARPA spends. Did you update that with any of the things that we made adjustments through budget and time with like the gravel budget that we had? No, but I was just going to ask that because we have something in here, but it says the build back better funds. Have we gotten anything about build back better yet? So, it's a rolling budget annually. So, I think the latest deadline was like back in January, but that was for the money getting allocated this year for last year's deadlines. They haven't actually put out a schedule of application for the fiscal year 2024 yet. But that's like for the rent, like for mud mitigation, but no, I did, I have a placekeeper 300,000 here for that, and that's not, we had said 50,000. No, it was right. It was a hundred thousand dollar budget when we first got there. I mean, they tailored it back, we included half. Yeah, so that is not even in here. Okay. So, I'll put that 50,000. Was it 50,000 exactly? No. Yeah, change from 100 to 80 to 50 is what we included in the regular budget. Okay. So, because I still have 300 for mud mitigation, but that I think is build back better funds. Yeah, the build back better stuff. They don't have the fiscal year 2024 out yet, but I wanted to make sure that we were aware that those are federal grants with potentially tens of millions of dollars that we would qualify to apply for as a rural town. And so that could help alleviate, you know, any number of issues that we have as a town. I don't know if there's, you know, help needed on that, like I'd be willing to spend however many hours I need to on my laptop. You can ask Sam, she's well aware that I like stepping out of that screen. So, yeah. He wants to climb ladders. He wants to sprint on his laptop. Welcome to the participation, Steve. And I totally appreciate you. I get afterwards I do my contact information and whatever you guys need. Right. So, right now, just so you guys have an idea, we were awarded 515,000 in ARPA money and we have committed 200 and nearly 223,000, which leaves us about 292,000 that we haven't committed, but that we have wish list that exceeds that. It was three times the award. Yeah. The remaining wish list after committing was 472,000. Our wish list is almost 700,000. So, oh, and I should actually put in that we committed the 2,000. Yeah, it was 2,000. Yeah, it was under, around the world. Yes, she is. So, 225 we've committed. So, we have it just under 291. So, where did you get that one? Amazon. Now, does it have to be a certain member to apply for grants for the town? So, would it have to go to the budget or the slide floor to apply for grants? Well, yeah, I mean, like there's a whole grant portal. We have grant like users, I mean, anyone who wants to, you know, if we had somebody who said, oh, I want to help you write this grant, you know, we would work with someone and then we would submit it through the town. Because I'd be willing to help too. Yeah, there's a lot of research, but yeah, there's a lot of, I mean, we're going to need a lot of help. We're going to need help. I mean, we're going to need help for sure. It's great an opportunity if there's a lot of time and attention that needs to be paid for it. So, as a board, we're going to have to be involved. Yeah. This was here at 9.30. It's time for my lunch because you've been there since five o'clock before. Okay, guys, we have spent our time productively tonight and I appreciate all of your participation. I put a note on my calendar to call the counter attorney tomorrow, which I will do. Okay, thank you.